Today
we returned to St. Thomas— our most favorite place in all the Caribbean. We had
visited here several times on past cruises and we spent 3 weeks on the island
in 2015 celebrating our completion of visiting all the national parks.
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St. ThomasHarbor
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Just
coming into the harbor stirred fond memories of our past visits and we
immediately began to recognize familiar sites. The harbor was filled with
transient sailing boats and mega power yachts.  |
A Tall Dude to Greet Us!
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The site brought back memories of
our boating days. We decided not to take a tour here because most of the tours
went to various beaches and this is not where we wanted to spend most of our
time. We are also glad at this decision when we pulled into the harbor and saw
two other cruise ships along with ours.  |
The Obligatory Welcome Pic
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With three cruise ships in port there's
no question that the beaches would be tremendously crowded. Not
having been off the ship for the past four days, we were eager to get off and
stretch our legs, and Jane was eager to spend some money. In lieu of our
morning exercise walk, we decided to walk the approximate 1 mile distance to
the downtown area.  |
Walking to Downtown
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We arrived at the crafts market which was located in the
same place we have always known it. Nothing there was really speaking to us so
we ambled over to Main Street and headed down the jewelry store gauntlet.
Everybody and his brother must own a jewelry store in St. Thomas to the point
that it is difficult to find a regular store or gift shop.
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Private $$$hip w/Heliopad
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We roamed some
streets and alleyways until Capt. Larry spotted another Mr. Tablecloth. Jane
was in heaven and perused the offerings until she found a set of placemats that
she wanted along with a knit cover to wear over a camisole top. We made our way
back to the crafts market and found a taxi stand that would take us back to our
ship.  |
Sunset Over St. Thomas
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We looked at some of the duty-free shops next to our pier, but didn’t
find anything else that we felt we had to have. We had a delightful lunch and
then took a power nap to get ready for tonight’s specialty restaurant— Tamarind
Pan-Asian curisine.
The
next morning we awoke to find our ship docked at a pier in Philipsburg, St. Maarten
(French: St. Martin).  |
Sailboats in St. Maarten Harbor
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The island of St. Martin is divided roughly 60:40 between
the French Republic (20 sq. mi.) In the Kingdom of the Netherlands (13 sq. mi.).
The Dutch side with approximately 41,000 inhabitants is more populated than the
French (~32,000). The site also has the bulk of the island’s commercial and
economic activity.
We
had reserved a short excursion for this island which was basically a two hour
circumnavigation of the island.  |
Marker Dividing French/Dutch
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Dominic, our guide for this excursion, got
everyone loaded on the bus and off we went. He pointed out that much of the
land that we were traveling on had been reclaimed from the sea and that this
reclamation process was in full swing to accommodate and encourage coastal
development.  |
Waves Breaking in Shallows
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As we drove through the Dutch side, Dominic described all of the
commercial and residential development that had occurred since Hurricane Irma
had devastated the eastern part of the island. As so often happens after a
major storm, Dominic observed that many people were still fighting with
insurance companies in order to rebuild.
We
crossed the boundary separating the southern Dutch side from the northern
French side. Dominic described how there were two of everything on the island—
one for the French, and one for the Dutch.  |
Hilly French Side
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In fact, this even extended to
babies born to mixed Dutch and French parents who were granted dual citizenship
and issued both Dutch and French passports. Topographically the French site is
much more mountainous than the Dutch and also had more natural beaches.  |
Open Air Crafts Market
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We
stopped at an area where Atlantic Ocean waves broke over an extended shallow
area of land.
We
proceeded to our last stop of the tour, and open-air crafts market where Jane
was able to find some “bargains” that she had to have. The market was huge with
respect to the number of vendors, but the type, quality, and price of the
offerings varied very little among them. We re-boarded the bus and headed back
to the cruise terminal.  |
A St. Maarten Beach
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Along the way we spotted the Princess Julianna
International Airport on the Dutch side and a couple of popular bays.
Back
on board we got cleaned up for dinner and afterwards attended a BBC Earth
concert presentation entitled Seven
Worlds One Planet with live orchestration.  |
Sunset Leaving St. Maarten
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The program was really enjoyable
and entertaining.
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